As CPAs and capital market servants, you are all acutely aware that that serving clients to the best of your ability is priority numero uno. Forget your family and friends. Forget your pets. Forget your beloveds. Clients complete you in ways that those other people/animals can't possibly understand.
Sure, there is the occasional event that wouldn't allow you to cater immediately to a client's need but it'd better be a damn good reason. While attending the birth of children and funerals of loved ones are typically allowed, and a nuclear attack or Diet Coke break are also in the realm of serious matters, some CPAs out there have more obscure life-altering events that will cause them to give clients the "I need a minute" finger. Enter Howard Owens, an accountant near Riverside, California who has had a "Titanic fascination since childhood," reports the New York Times:
On the evening of April 14, the Balmoral cruise ship will arrive at the spot where the Titanic sank 100 years ago. A memorial service will be held there at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, when the Titanic went down. Mr. Owens, 56, and his wife, Terry, spent close to $11,000 each for the 12-night crossing, which will also require him to shut down his office at the worst possible time.“A client of mine said, ‘Why would you close at the middle of the tax season?’ I said, ‘I didn’t pick the day the Titanic sank,’ ” Mr. Owens said. “I have to be there. I just have to.”
Those who said after President Barack Obama’s speech last week to Congress that government does not create wealth, does not create jobs and cannot stimulate the economy spoke nonsense. So do those who say that only private business creates wealth, as if any revenue going to taxes destroys wealth. Adam Smith, who figured out market capitalism in his 1776 book “The Wealth of Nations,” could set them straight. We have plenty of equally competent economists who understand these issues today. They just do not get the attention that the news media lavish on high-profile politicians and pundits who speak with absolute certainty on matters about which their words show they know nothing. [
There’s a small part of us that hopes the lame-o Congress just throws their hands up and lets all the outstanding tax policy issues expire, just to see what the fallout would be.